Weekly Scribblings #77: Boiling Over

 Greetings, dear wordsmiths! Today I'm feeling inspired by one of our regular  participants.

‘Human arrogance is boiling over’ said Rob Kistner in a comment to a recent Writers’ Pantry, after writing a moving poem about the need for poets to speak out about environmental damage; this poem, which I invite you to read now if you missed it before.

I replied to his comment that it was such a good line, it deserved to be used in a future poem. So, right now, let’s all use it as inspiration – not necessarily the words themselves so much as the idea. (If you do use the actual words, please add a footnote to say you're quoting Rob.) With that inspiration, let’s use our poetic voices now to speak for our earth and its inhabitants.  

Can this do any good, really? Possibly not – but keeping silent will assuredly have no effect. We do what we can, and what we can do is write poems and stories. Let's have our words boil over!

When we’ve written them, what then? Maybe submit the finished piece to a literary journal, either online or off? Perhaps send it as a letter to the editor of the local paper … or to one of the major nationals, why not? Print it out and stick it up on a public notice-board (signed or unsigned, up to you)? Recite it at poetry readings? Email it to all your friends? Post it on Facebook or Twitter?

For starters, please use Mister Linky, below, to link us to it at your blog.

It can be poetry or prose, newly written especially for this prompt, or something recent which addresses the subject. (We need prose pieces to be 369 words maximum, excluding title). Older pieces are acceptable too if substantially rewritten. Do of course have a read of each other’s, and if any of them make you go, ‘Wow!’ maybe you could share the link on your social media? Let’s spread the word!

 

Image by damnikia, freely available from Unsplash.

Writers’ Pantry #77: On Independence Day

Greetings, my dear poets and storytellers. I hope you are having a really good day. In my bit of the world, nature just gave us a couple of cool days after about a week of eyeball-melting temperatures. I’m grateful for the break, even if another heatwave is on the way.

Today, the United States of America is celebrating Independence Day. No, not the movie where Will Smith saves the world from aliens, but the day “The Continental Congress declared that the thirteen American colonies were no longer subject (and subordinate) to the monarch of Britain, King George III, and were now united, free, and independent states.”

Here are some quotes that explore feelings brewed by this day:

“Today, we’ll celebrate Independence Day using the backdrop of the sky as a canvas, the fireworks thrown against it bearing semblance to the drips from the hands of Jackson Pollock but we’ll forget that here, in America there are still some who are not free.”
~ Ayokunle Falomo

 “I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed 
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered 
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder”
~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti

“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”
~ William Faulkner 

 The Writers’ Pantry is open to all! Let’s share poetry or prose that is new or old, fiction or nonfiction, short or longish (if choosing prose, your word count should be 369 words or fewer). One link per participant, please. This prompt shall remain open for a week.

- for next Wednesday, our Rosemary will invite us to create poetry or prose using Rob Kistner’s phrase “Human arrogance is boiling over” as inspiration. We aren’t required to use the actual words. But if we do, we should credit them to Rob on a footnote.

Let us write, read, and share our thoughts freely.

“A little girl gazing in the distance for the Fourth of July”, by Reba Spike – on Unsplash